ABSTRACT

The ethics of teaching comes to focus very intentionally on the proactive pursuit, cultivation, and support of those goods of learning in and for a democratic community and polity. The heart and soul of the ethics of teaching is to be found in the cultivation of learning in pupils. The model can easily be incorporated in the work of cultivating an ethical school. A tiny fraction of the learners in a given nation's schools will become academic scholars. An inquiry into the virtues that seems intrinsically tied to the work of educating and leading a process of educating proposed three virtues that seemed especially important in realizing the goods of learning and teaching: the virtue of presence, the virtue of authenticity, and the virtue of responsibility. This chapter explores—all too briefly—how those virtues hold up when placed against the moral landscape of learning and teaching. Teachers will always be refining their pedagogical skills and strategies.